your albatross (let it go, let it go)
by whyyesitscar
Summary: It's always bothered Helena that history has remembered her brother as H.G. Wells. After Boone, Myka finally decides to do something about it. (Inspired by an Imagine Bering and Wells prompt.)


**A/N: For the third year in a row, I'm upholding my tradition of posting something on my birthday as a reverse-gift. Enjoy!**

* * *

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_(i do not know what it is about you that closes  
__and opens;__only something in me understands  
__the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)  
__nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands  
_**-e.e. cummings, "somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond"**

/

Later you'll blame Claudia, but it starts with Helena. Everything starts with Helena. (Lots of times, everything stops with her, too. It isn't always bad.)

You'll remember that day in pieces—the first day she got angry with history. She's always angry at the past and you're still trying to help her through it, but this time she was angry with textbooks and professors and academics who didn't care enough to check. You'll remember that day in the shake of her head every time she was bothered again, like the disapproval of a very tiny bull; you'll remember that day in her drumming fingers, the tap-tap-tap of her frustration with Pete's unwelcome answers.

(She never specifically asked any questions; you'll remember that, too. But the days were early and she was new, and Pete teases the same way he loves and laughs and talks and works. With heart.)

It starts with Helena and her shaking head, impatient fingers, irritated breathing. It starts with a simple wish, like the dull pulse of a sore muscle; a steady throb of a headache too slight to cure. She laments being forgotten. You promise—silently, but with faith like a heartbeat—to remember her, even if (especially if) you are the only one.

Time drags you forward, pulling at your waist and turning your body supple as a bow. It waits for your foolish heart to catch up. It doesn't tell you that she is the arrow. It doesn't tell you that she can pierce you.

She is the only one to turn the tables on time, curling the leash around its legs until it spins out of control, dizzy with the footfalls of an elephant. She laughs behind its back as it wobbles and teeters. She's surprised, you know, by how long it takes to right itself.

You have never seen anyone lonelier.

Everything starts with Helena.

/

After Boone, you're pretty sure everyone expects you to clam up again. Even Steve, and he hasn't really known you that long. Pete keeps glancing over at you in the car, probably wondering why you aren't crying. You will cry. You know it. It's not like you're trying not to cry; it's just that you need a moment to breathe. You didn't breathe after Sam or after Yellowstone and neither of those really worked out for you, so you take the time now. You've learned, after all.

A moment turns into three days and then Pete is on a mission with Claudia and when he calls on the Farnsworth to say he's coming home, you know he's going to want to talk. He isn't serious very often but he does get determined, and something about this case has nudged a hard glint to his eye. You've only got a few hours to prepare yourself.

"Are you okay?" you ask, even though he and Claudia have been joking the whole call.

"Yeah, we're good," he answers, and you believe him. "Be home before you know it."

"Did you know they didn't actually burn witches in Salem?" Claudia adds, popping her head into the side of the screen.

"Yeah," you smile. "Yeah, I did. All but one were hanged."

Pete rolls his eyes. "Geez, it's Mykes. She knows everything."

"Okay, well one day I'm gonna find some bit of history that she doesn't know, and I'm gonna feel so awesome and you'll be mega jealous."

"Never gonna happen; she's always reading."

Claudia pushes her way onto more of the screen. "Myka, quit reading."

Pete pushes back. "Mykes, don't quit reading."

You laugh, shake your head, and hang up.

The moment is gone with your smile and you suddenly have an urge to be anywhere but home.

/

Steve only protests a little bit when you drag him out to the car—he keeps going on about how there aren't any jazz bars in Univille and you tell him that it's okay; you're not staying in Univille. And you're not really going to a jazz bar either, which you're pretty sure he notices after you leave the liquor store and find your favorite piece of nowhere out in the middle of the desert.

You lift open the trunk of your Jeep and sit down, cracking open one of your many beers as you watch Steve put the rest on ice. You pull out some wireless speakers and your iPod—because you might be doing something stupid but you'd never be stupid enough to drain your car battery—and hang your legs over the side of the trunk. You kick your feet together and if Pete were here he'd call you a girl.

Steve sits next to you, scooting back enough so he's not crowding. In a few hours you'll be crowding him, but there's still time.

"I think I know the answer to this question, but do you want to talk about it?"

You laugh and take another long swig of your beer. It's almost half-gone already. You make a note to pace yourself because the other ones aren't cold yet and there's nothing you hate more than warm beer. It's why you're always sober in Germany.

"Do you think I'm stubborn, Steve?" you ask instead.

"I think you're assured."

"Stubborn?"

"Ambitious."

"Stubborn?"

"Sure, I'm kinda getting that feeling right now."

"Sometimes I do things because they're the right thing to do—I see big picture, you know? I know how decisions are going to play out because people are _not_ complicated. So I'll do something because eventually I'll be right about it."

"It's not a crime to do something for yourself, Myka."

"So says the Buddhist," you laugh. You swirl your beer in the bottle, feeling twenty two again as you realize how little is left. You finish it anyway. "It's not a bad thing to be moral, either. To have convictions."

"No, it isn't."

"I'm thirsty, Steve."

You process the night in sounds—Steve rooting around in the ice sounds like a shovel scraping against snow; each time a bottle cap hisses as it's opened, you fight back tears. If Steve asked, you wouldn't be able to give him a reason.

"Have you ever seen someone," you ask later, when there are more empty bottles than full and you're not the only one to blame for that, "have you ever seen someone so beautiful that you just know you want to be around them all the time?"

"Yeah."

"So why are you working at the Warehouse?"

"It's Claudia."

You laugh, slow and loud. It tastes like molasses and sounds like doubt. "No, I mean—"

"I know what you mean."

"So have you?"

"If I had, I wouldn't be working at the Warehouse," he teases back. "No. I haven't."

"Asshole." You shove him into the side of the car and he stays there. "Wisconsin sucks," you sigh into the night. Clouds cringe away from your beer breath.

"Madison is pretty cool."

"Yeah."

"But, I mean, Wisconsin sucks."

"Wisconsin _sucks_."

/

("Jeez, what the hell did you do to her?"

"She made me, Claud."

"Listen, when we get back home, I don't wanna go inside. I'll sleep in the car."

"Myka, you're drunk and that's insane. Do you know how cold it gets at night?"

"So give me a blanket."

"Myka…"

"I grew up in Colorado, okay? I can handle the cold."

"But apparently not beer. Steve, help me out here, will you? Steve? Oh, okay, you're that kind of drunk."

"Don't worry about him; he's always quiet."

"Can we just go home?"

"Can't go home. Pete's there."

"Myka, it's three in the morning. Pete passed out four hours ago and I'm only awake because I texted Steve asking where he was and got a response of forty f's and a semicolon. Thank god I track everyone's GPS because other—"

"You talk too much."

"And you're stubborn. Get in the car."

"Ah-_ha_! Stubborn! See, Steve?")

/

There is aspirin by your bed when you wake up and you know Pete put it there, and that's when you start to cry. It's the middle of the day, everyone else is at work, and Leena isn't there to hear you anymore, so you just cry.

You eat and you cry and you sleep and you cry and eventually you stop having a reason. Six o'clock finds you in Pete's room with Twizzlers and _The Princess Bride,_ tears streaming down your face even though Max is your favorite.

Pete shuffles in silently, climbing up next to you and scooting you to the side.

"I didn't know you could buy an oil drum worth of Twizzlers," he says.

"Hey, this is only half an oil drum."

"Oh, is that where you draw the line?"

"No, I just ate the other half."

"Ah."

You pass him the container and wait.

"Claud said you had a fun night," he eventually offers.

"Claudia doesn't know a thing."

"Did I say Claudia? I meant Steve."

"No, you didn't."

"I might have. Steve probably thought it was even less fun; he's such a downer."

"Pete, can we not do this now?"

"Mykes, you gotta talk to me. Do you want to go back?"

There aren't enough Twizzlers in the world to stop Pete's questions, but that doesn't mean you can't glare at him like you wish there were. "Yes," you finally grumble, because even if you don't want to answer him, you never want to lie. "But I can't."

"I'll book some tickets right now; you know I will."

"Don't, Pete. I don't want to waste my time."

"Is it a waste of time to tell her how you feel?" he asks softly.

"It is if she won't listen."

"Well, H.G.'s pretty smart, she might—"

"Pete, what do you think I was doing the whole time we were in Boone?" you sigh.

"Oh." He shifts next to you and steals a handful of Twizzlers, which is a far greater amount than would fit in your hands. "I can hate her, if you want."

"I can't," you say through tears you thought you'd finished crying.

/

You apologize to Claudia the next day and she waves it off, shoving a really cool article about Virginia Woolf across the table for you to look at. She's been getting into research again, not just gadgets and databases. When you really think about it, you realize that Claudia is connecting with the Warehouse in a way that no one else really has, and the implications sometimes keep you up too late.

You get about halfway through the first page before Claudia starts yammering about what's in it—_she wrote everything standing up, Myka, isn't that awesome; have you seen her podium in the Warehouse because sometimes that thing gives me the jeebies_—and soon you're tuning out everything, written words and Claudia's excited speech alike.

(You remember a day in another life, when Helena had raided the Warehouse library after finishing inventory early. You found her late at night, after everyone else had stopped caring to look, curled on the couch with piles of Virginia Woolf's works stacked on either side.

She jumped in her seat when your foot scuffed too loudly against the floor; when she looked up at you, her eyes were wild and desperate.

"Have you read these?" she asked.

You nodded and sat next to her.

"Tell me about her."

"You want the abridged version?" you laughed. "I could recite a biography for you."

"Please, Myka."

"Okay. Well, she was British, like you. A wonderful, innovative writer, as I'm sure you've discovered. A lot of scholars now think she was bipolar. She had very extreme mood swings."

"I've noticed the publication dates don't go past 1941."

You nodded. "This one," you said, picking up _Between the Acts_, "was published posthumously. She walked into a river and drowned herself after finishing it."

"How old was she?"

"Fifty nine."

"She was born in 1882? We could have been friends." Helena's voice was wistful, pleading, and full of regret. You'd reached out to take her hand but she turned away at the last moment. Still, you could see even in her cheeks that this was the day Helena realized what being bronzed really meant. She'd spent so long mourning Christina that she'd forgotten she could have had a life, too.

"I'm sure you would have been great ones," you finally said.

Helena almost cried that day, and you almost held her.)

"Claud," you interrupt, prompting a scowl, "I need a favor."

"Is it complicated?"

"Probably."

"Can I tell anyone about it?"

"No."

"I'm in," she smiles, her eyes sparkling. "What do you need?"

"A flight to London, a plausible cover, and your sneakiest researching skills."

/

The nice thing about the world of independent bookstores is that it's very small and full of curious people. You spend three days in London and come back armed with specific treasures—letters and photographs and early manuscripts that reveal the truth without linking anything to the Warehouse. Maybe you're doing this behind Artie's back, but that doesn't mean you have to make him any angrier with you.

You send anonymous packages to your father, an old college professor of yours, one of his historian friends—

and then you wait.

/

(Claudia asks you only once why you're doing this. It's the first question she's asked you for which you don't have an immediate answer.

You're not doing this for you. You're not really even doing this for Helena. You're doing this because it's right, because people are never careful enough with the parts of history that really matter. You're doing this because it might change one person's world even if it doesn't change everyone's.

Anyway, that's what you tell Claudia.

You're doing this because you miss her.)

/

It takes a month for word to start getting out. You spend that entire month rushing through work, scarfing down buckets of Twizzlers, and taking every mood swing out on Pete. But he's the world's greatest friend. He knows something's up and he just goes with it. Though, you do listen when he says the bruise on his shoulder is getting out of hand; even great friends have their limits.

(He catches you in the library one day, every H.G. Wells first edition strewn around you.

"I was lying when I said I could hate her," he offers.

"I know."

"I mean, she's still weird and I don't always like what she does or how she does it, but I don't think she's evil anymore."

"She was never evil, Pete."

"Yeah, but I used to think she was." He slides a book out of the way with his foot and sits next to you, propping his elbows on his knees. "I don't anymore."

"Yeah, I got that."

Pete can never stay still for long and it only takes a moment for him to shift again. "Which one are you reading?"

You hold up _When the Sleeper Wakes_. "Helena must have supplied the original idea for the first version in 1899, but Charles revised it in 1910. It's about a man who sleeps for two hundred years and wakes up to find the interest in his bank account has accrued and made him the richest man in the world."

"1899, wasn't that when—"

"Yeah."

"Okay, well—here, scoot over to that side—Artie's doing whatever Artie's doing and we've got a couple hours to spare. I've never read it, so read it to me."

You raise your eyebrows, checking to make sure he's serious. "You want me to read this to you." He nods and grins. "Pete, you're gonna fall asleep."

"No, I promise I'm not," he counters, vigorously shaking his head. "Audio books are way better than book-books."

You laugh and he eagerly stretches out, resting his feet in your lap and lacing his fingers behind his head.

"'One afternoon, at low water'," you begin, "'Mr. Isbister, a young artist lodging at Boscastle, walked from that place to the picturesque cove of Pentargen, desiring to examine the caves there. Halfway down the precipitous path to the Pentargen beach he came suddenly upon a man sitting in an attitude of profound distress'…"

Pete does fall asleep, no matter what he promised.

You smile, put the book down, and curl up next to him.)

/

By the time H.G. Wells becomes an article on BuzzFeed, Artie begins every one of your interactions with a glare. You never say anything, and neither does he. As the weeks wear on, his glare dissolves into indifference and finally sympathy, and still you maintain silence.

The man known as H.G. Wells is confirmed to be a woman nine months after you sent the first package. Claudia isn't impressed but you aren't the tech geek she is and sometimes you're overwhelmed by how information travels. You're sure Helena would be too, and you only wish she were here to confirm your suspicions.

But she isn't, and so you spend your spare time on Internet forums, laughing as scholars everywhere reevaluate her works based on what they think they know. They'll never know the full truth and so debate will wage on—why pieces published after 1900 seem to be of a lesser quality; what the recurring theme of utopia really means in light of the new information about the author. What was Helena G. Wells (middle name still uncertain) yearning for; what kind of society did she dream of when she dreamed of perfection?

You have seen London, and you have seen the Warehouse, and you have seen Boone.

You don't have to be a scholar to want answers to those questions.

(Almost a year passes before you get them.)

/

It's coming up on two years since your visit to Boone. You wouldn't think much of it except you've always been a little superstitious about dates. Even insignificant anniversaries are anniversaries, and you prepare before every one, just in case something should happen.

You've barely spoken to Helena since, just a few words here and there. An artifact took you to Madison and you texted her a halfhearted invitation for coffee. You knew she wouldn't accept, and she didn't. Somehow that comforted you.

Today is a Tuesday. The sky is grey but there is an incongruous lightness to the air, and you cannot help the occasional skip in your step. You kick rocks as you get out of the car and head to the Warehouse; Pete volleys one back to you that happens to cross his path, and you play an impromptu game of soccer until the door gets in the way. Pete laughs with you all the way through the umbilicus.

She is waiting for you on the other side.

Her face is tired and puffy; you recognize the remnants of driving too long. There is night wind in her cheeks and her eyes sag with the burden of yesterday. She doesn't smile and neither do you. Three feet separate you and you cannot figure out how to close the gap.

Why now, you want to ask. What happened to you, you almost blurt.

"Hello," you say instead.

Helena's shoulders sag and tears well quickly in her eyes.

"Hello, Myka."

/

It is not a romantic moment. You have never been one for grand gestures; for cloying sentiment or serendipitous reunions. Your relationships have been passionate, yes, and intense—but rational. Logical. There is always an order because there is always a reason. Sam was a secret but he was a secret you could control with long lunches, dinners in neighboring towns, and well-planned weekend getaways.

You are rarely reckless and even if you were, this is no time to demonstrate. This is not a romantic moment.

You kiss her anyway.

(She melts into you like you used to with Sam. It isn't what you expect and it only makes you hold on tighter.

You hear 'thank you' when you pull apart and you're not sure if it came from your lips or hers. You're not sure if it really matters, either.

You kiss her again.)

/

She explains later how she got to the Warehouse from Boone. Well, the how of it is easy enough to guess. The why, like everything else with Helena, is complicated.

Helena tells you it is complicated. You realize, after some thought, that Helena is simply one for grand gestures. Not for the last time, you have something to teach Helena about herself.

It's an unreasonably heady feeling.

You listen over talks on the couch in the library; tears in the garden, torches burning against the dark; sighs in your bed—sighs and sighs and sighs. You listen until Helena runs out of words and then you teach her new ones.

Just like always, she hears you.

/

It starts with Helena. It ends with Helena first, but it immediately starts again and you have a feeling that's how it's going to be for a very long time.

Your memories of days and months will be hazy because you cannot foresee any obstacles that will interrupt the flow of peace. Helena is not calm, and she may never be, but you will be there. You worry too much and you always will, but she will be there.

Everything starts with Helena.

(Life starts with Helena.)


End file.
